The United Arab Emirates has been ranked as region's first and featured among the world's regional champions in the Integrated Index for Postal Development (2IPD) for 2017, which was released by the Universal Postal Union (UPU).

"This year’s global top three; Switzerland, France and Japan and the regional champions; Brazil, Mauritius, Poland, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, deserve to be congratulated on their outstanding performance," Bishar A. Hussein UPU Director General, said in a message to mark the World Post Day, which is celebrated each year on 9 October.

"Faithful to its mission, the UPU has chosen two main highlights for this year’s World Post Day celebrations. Firstly, we will be recognizing the top-ranked countries in the newly released Integrated Index for Postal Development. Providing a snapshot of postal development in 170 countries, this new index is a powerful tool which governments, regulators and postal operators can use to promote postal excellence," he added.

According to the 2IPD index, the relatively higher overall performance of the UAE is driven by better quality of service. It ensures delivery within one day for most of its domestic and inbound postal shipments, making it the fastest postal delivery service in the world.

In a ceremony held Monday in Dubai to celebrate World Postal Day, Acting CEO of Emirates Post Group Abdullah Mohammed Al Ashram, said the top ranking is a significant achievement for the UAE.

During the ceremony, winner for the UAE in the 2017 International Letter-Writing Competition for Young People, organised by the Universal Postal Union (UPU), were honoured.

The 2IPD is a composite index providing an overview of postal development around the world, with the results for 2016 covering over 170 countries.

This Index reveals not only the relative performance of Posts around the world, but also the key roads to excellence in postal infrastructure. This makes the 2IPD a unique tool for policymakers, regulators, national Posts and other sector stakeholders eager to understand the role that postal services can play in the era of e-commerce.

The final overall 2IPD score is the linear combination of the reliability, reach, relevance and resilience scores.

Source: WAM